I want to know where I can find a dictionary that I can look up homonyms of a word. For instance if I type in alien it will show me the word salient. That dictionary should base on the sound itself, not just the word list. There are new words that these lists don't contain, like pwn (it will sound similar to cow).
7
-
2You can find innumerable lists of homonyms on the internet, as you are clearly aware, but you're not looking for homonyms (salient is not a homonym for alien by any stretch of definition). Perhaps a rhyming dictionary would be a good start, though you'd have to find one that listed slant rhyme, internal rhyme, etc. That said, any such reference will lag innovation in the English language, by definition, so I'd be surprised if you found one which includes "pwn" and words like it.– Dan BronOct 21, 2014 at 11:28
-
2I'll also offer a word of warning: pronunciation is one of the most widely-varying aspects of the English language, so words that rhyme or sound alike to you may not sound alike to a Scot or a Texan. For example, around here pwn is pronounced like own (/ˈpoʊn/ or pohn), and doesn't sound anything like cow.– Dan BronOct 21, 2014 at 11:32
-
1I found a rhyming dictionary which may suit your need, posted as an answer. To answer your question about salient vs alien, no, as I said, those two words are definitely not homonyms. Homonyms can be defined in several ways; they may have the exact same pronunciation ("homo-" means "same") or the exact same spelling, or ideally both, to be what's called a "true homonym". But words which simply sound similar are not termed "homonyms".– Dan BronOct 21, 2014 at 12:06
-
1Even saying "they rhyme" a stretch, because "rhyme", unqualified, typically means "syllabic rhyme", i.e. the last syllable of each word sounds the same. There are other types of rhyme, like "slant rhyme", where the leading syllables sound similar, or "forced rhyme", where the sound match is imperfect, etc. Anyway, because you're not looking for typical, traditional (syllabic) rhymes, I had to find a special rhyming dictionary which included entries for at least slant rhyme, but even that may not be enough, because I think you're looking for a more general idea of "words which sound similar".– Dan BronOct 21, 2014 at 12:18
-
4I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's a resource request.– HelmarOct 24, 2016 at 12:44
|
Show 2 more comments
1 Answer
I googled for rhyming dictionaries which include (at a minimum) slant rhyme, and came across the site B-Rhymes, which does, indeed, give "salient" as a match for "alien" (but does not, as I guessed, have an entry for pwn).
answered Oct 21, 2014 at 12:00
